Another Indiana Jones myth. The Indy movies have always been favorites and it’s hard not to remember that scene wherein Indiana Jones shoves that flag pole into the wheel of a Nazi motorcyclist, sending the Nazi straight into the sky, flipping the bike multiple times. Ah, what good times.
Jamie brought up an interesting point early on in this episode as far as whether or not this is possible. He correctly pointed out that it seems rather difficult to change all of that energy from going straight to all of a sudden skyward. And as the test would prove, he was right in his concerns.
The ineffective pigeon catcher cannon that was constructed a while back made a return to serve as the flag pole shooter in this episode. I always find it interesting to see the boys hook stuff like this up and assemble the bike trailer and its complicated setup. I wouldn’t even pretend to know how to get all of that going sometimes. It took them an attempt or two to get everything dialed in, but their rig was a definite success.
MythBusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman
Elsewhere, Grant, Kari, and Tory worked on another prison escape myth. We’ve seen several of these by now, but this one was a little more commonly known. Can you break out of prison with bed sheets? How about a rope of hair? Or a rope of toilet paper?
I really felt sorry for those involved with these myths, not just the three MythBusters but those assistants who helped with everything. You can tell a lot of work went into getting all of these ready for the big day and to my surprise, they all worked. I was most surprised of the hair because of the difficulties with braiding one section to the next. Kari and company obviously found a successful technique for this. Everyone seemed to walk away with some lovely rope burns. Those will keep this myth in their memories for a while.
One of the reasons I liked this episode is that although the Motorcycle Flip myth was busted, Jamie and Adam didn’t just give up. They replicated the results of the myth. This is one of my constant complaints with the show. Adam and Jamie usually see this through while grant, Tory, and Kari seem to get lazy and quit before the job is done. Kudos to the boys.
Rating: 8.4
One Comment, Comment or Ping
Ogre
I had hoped for a similiar result as what we see in the movie. But, the physics make perfect sense against it as Jamie and Adam showed. In fact, I remembered after watching this episode that in James Bond Golden Eye, when bond makes his escape from the nuclear bomb factory, he throws the pilot on the ground, and the guy on the motorcycle chasing him hits into the guy. Instantly, his front tire stops and the bike skids to a stop–like what happened to the Myth Busters and the flag pole. So, in that movie that technically got it right. But, it damn sure is fun in Indiana Jones seeing the bike flip like that
Nov 10th, 2008